snaark wrote:Forcing people to vote tends to make them find any dumb reason to like or dislike candidates. This forces politicians to engage in trivial arguments, which drowns out healthy political discourse. Remember "children overboard"?

To put it another way: Informed people tend to vote, whereas uninformed people may or may not vote, given the choice. If voting is not compulsory, then at least part of the uniformed proportion of the population won't affect the outcome.

Just my 0.02€

The arrogance of those statements is quite staggering.

I find staggering how people defend their country's system because it's their country's system. People should vote because they want to participate in the democratic system, not because they will be fined if they don't. Making people vote under duress peverts the democratic process. The fact that people can't whine about the outcome afterwards is irrelevant, and not even true. People will whine about the outcome anyway.

Wearing pants in public would also be a violation of this abstract concept you call "freedom".

snaark wrote: Making people vote under duress perverts the democratic process.

Yes it would.But there is a huge difference between "under duress" and something being compulsory. If you want your opinion taken semi-seriously by this anonymous internet user, plz refrain from using incorrect and emotionally-laden terms.

Compulsory voting ensures the participation of all citizens. As long as the eggheads in Silicon Valley haven't invented a robot overlord to rule us all, it is IMO an elegant solution to make sure the great unwashed masses do not get to opt out of the democratic process ;-)

Point taken. Compelling people to vote perverts the democratic system :)

Incidentally apart from Australia (which has historically been governed by two parties that are almost indistinguishable), other countries where voting is mandatory include Belgium, Argentina, Turkey and Egypt. Not exactly models for efficient democracy.

snaark wrote:Incidentally apart from Australia (which has historically been governed by two parties that are almost indistinguishable), other countries where voting is mandatory include Belgium, Argentina, Turkey and Egypt. Not exactly models for efficient democracy.

Zimbabwe, CAF and Afghanistan have presidents. Maybe we should do away with presidents.

He used to be 19D20 and was cool about guns n that, but now I think a cat lady has stolen his password and posts for him, while he drinks beer and shoots at stuff from his back porch

Cheers

No cat lady, I just loath trumph worse than anybody or thing, and muckraking is a American pastime. I now have a decent shooting range I've built on my tree farm where I occasionally drink beer at while shooting at shit. But I do still shoot a .22 off the porch sometimes.I'd post more gun stuff but there seems to be a lack of interest.

Wait, I'm confused. Hilldawg got thousands and thousands of people to vote illegally for her only to lose?

Remember when conspiracy theories used to make sense? Like "The nazis intentionally lost WWII so they could rise again after compromising a global intelligence agency in 2014 and eliminate all threats at once using technology not available in the 1940's?" Or "A bioengineering company bought an island in Central America and recreated dinosaurs but had to abandon their plans when some dinosaurs escaped and killed people"? Even "Dank memes make dank dreams, but dank fuel can't melt steel beams" was better.

You don't need those thousands and thousands of illegal votes when you have 304 electoral votes. Let us all bow our heads in thankful prayer....

The overt sedition now visible in DC is unprecedented in our modern history and I am so damn glad to be observing from up here. Unseating a duly elected President will set a precedent that will guarantee decades of violence and unrest. I hope he takes a bunch of traitorous neofucks with him on his way out. Double wield, Donald!

Anybody else catch the bit about flags with 51 stars when Pence went to Europe? Puerto Rico or part of California maybe? I loves me a good foreshadowing.

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